Chapter Text
Earth
The dozens of survivors slowly walked through the holes in reality, the green border on them glowing bright whilst the one who opened them held still, arm outstretched toward them, yet at a distance, a faint glow from a Green Lantern Ring on one finger...
"Is she sure about this?" Someone whispered.
"Well, Batman was the one who suggested it..."
"Why not time travel? haven't they..."
"... That was... That was Flash."
"Oh."
Finally, it was just the four survivors of the Justice League, each removing their suits at that point. Habit had kept them in costume until the civilians left... but...
"We all agreed on what we'll do?" Diana asked, bag on a shoulder, looking quite unlike herself.
Nods all around.
Clark put a hand to Bruce's shoulder. "Think you'll come out near Atlas again?"
"That... that was just a simulation, you know." Bruce reminded. "... But, probably."
"Looking forward to having your wings back?"
Bruce softly smiled. "Finally become a bat, and no one will call me Batman. What a crock."
Jessica smirked to herself.
"It'll be different... and... different weaknesses too." Clark sighed. "At least there's no Kryptonite."
Diana snorted to herself.
They all paused, then looked at Jessica. Unlike the rest, her costume was simply an illusion, so as soon as she powered down, she'd be back in civilian costume, making her the only one here in costume now.
"Good luck everyone. See you... around Remnant."
-
Remnant - Jessica
The portal faded behind her.
She had waited until the others left through their chosen portals, before entering this one. She had more control over these portals than they knew, she could... feel... and aim them. And she knew before stepping through there was something going on on this side of them.
She'd known more about Remnant than the others thought. She'd... she'd done this once before, outside of a crisis. A secret... but... it came in handy now.
Bruce, she knew would have known this when suggesting it, yet made it sound like the location would have been random.
Clark and the group he was to chaperone, she'd sent to the island of Patch near Vale.
Diana, to Argus, in Mistral.
Bruce, to an outlier town near Mantle.
She had felt it. Time... Time in Remnant was off. Something had happened.
And she'd aimed her portal, at first, to Vacuo.
She'd extended her awareness through the portal, her will to seeing them safe immediately, then... sensing they were and protected by a local tribe of nomads called the Ashari, she'd retargeted her portal...
And stepped through.
Jungle. Trees. Unlike Vacuo, which was night-time, here, was daylight. Early Evening.
And in the distance, the sound of a small frontier town.
She took one step... and tripped.
"Ooof!"
...
She pushed up, and looked down at herself.
... "Damnit, not again!" Oh crap... "My .. my voice? what... Damnit Am I like, twelve, again? That was just a damn simulation! Why... oh... crap." She stared at the blood on her hands... and the glowing eyes in shadow. She jumped up and fled for the town. "OHCRAPOHCRAP DAMNIT WHY'S MY AURA LOCKED HERE!"
Oh her finger, the Power Ring, transformed by the dimensional move, lay dormant and nearly-drained.
-
Clark
Clark smiled as the refugees were settled by the welcoming locals. He was thankful at Jessica's idea of explaining a few things enough to people before going through to here, but the few Faunus had still been a shock... even to the refugees who suddenly found themselves as Faunus. Yet alone at the... change in clothing mid-transit, like jumping dimensions required their entirely physical state of being - including dressed state needed to change.
He still had his shield, but gone was his familiar suit, and back was...
He sighed internally, realising that once more he was basically a teenager. Though he felt younger than last-time.
"Hey."
He smiled at the blonde huntsman who had assisted in getting the people settled. "Hello, I'm ... Clark Kent." It was going to be odd going into a situation as a hero and giving his human name. No one here would be willing to call him Superman, he knew that from last time...
"Taiyaing Xiao Long."
'Is that...' "Pleased to meet you."
"You too... wait a sec." Tai turned and shouted at two... very familiar... kids who were running around with a couple of the kids who came through. "Yang! Ruby! Easy, some of these are civilians and wont have their Aura!" He turned back. "Sorry, Yang's like, the most responsible fourteen year old I've ever known and she can still forget that kind off thing. Ruby's just too excited at the potential new friends." ... 'shit'...
"So... that green glowing portal?"
Clark sighed a bit, and shrugged. "Not me. One of my friends, Jessica, she's opened a few to get the other survivors elsewhere, didn't want to overload a single town."
"... Jessica, huh?"
Clark nodded as he followed the guy who he was mentally the same age as, and wondering why the hell for the time shift. "Yeah, she's... I don't know, might be around your kids' age... I'm not sure, the portal made a few... changes." He winced at seeing one former-human-turned-Faunus bump antlers going through a doorway. "Where we're from, there was no such thing as Faunus, now, they're... experiencing changes. She was early twenties on the other side, and last time we found ourselves on remnant knocked about a decade off of us." Tai paused a moment. "You know the name Ozpin? Might want to let him know there's some dimensional refugees here now."
-
Diana
It hadn't taken all that long. Argus was used to refugees, and Diana could guess why. It also hadn't taken long to figure out that there was something off. She'd had a barebones explanation of a few things before, from Yang and Blake, from Ruby and Weiss, even Team JNPR in that very short period of knowing them in the simulation.
And there's that when she used their version of the internet, there was no record of beacon falling, or ozpin dying, who was very much alive.
And the search results for Weiss Schnee showed up with some thirteen, soon to turn fourteen year old heiress singer, and not the huntress that had caught Bruce' mentor-instincts.
So she'd looked up everyone.
Ruby and Yang would still be on Patch. Blake was... probably in the wilderness somewhere, and Nora and Ren wouldn't be anywhere she could find easily, probably.
One name, a person she hadn't gotten to meet, though...
She stared up at the school named Sanctum, the current combat school to which one Miss Nikos was in attendance of... when not gallivanting around a tournament circuit.
"... Should I?" She asked quietly to herself. Her aura was unlocked, she was able to once more will her lasso or gauntletts into existence at will, and already had an invite... and was also fourteen years old again.
She'd not been fourteen in centuries.
She didn't like it... but... needs must, she was fourteen, a minor, and unless she accepted, she had no other options.
-
Bruce
'Time travel, Jessica? Really?'
... 'Opportunity calls, though...'
He kept his wings in as he moved through a small district of Mantle. Fourteen again, but still the same mind he had last time.
And too much at stake for Remnants future to accept the idea of just being a kid.
He found the small office, and smiled as he entered, being greeted by a kindly old man by the name of Polendina.
-
Jaune
Out of sight of his parents, who wouldn't approve, and his sisters, who ... mostly did, actually... He practised with a much larger blade than the crocea mors he knew, either the upgraded form he once carried, and the former and once-again simpler hand-and-a-half shortsword form.
A scream in the distance, the sound of grimm, and he set off running.
The scream also sounded a little... familiar.
Didn't matter his aura was once again locked away. He could fight. he knew how. .. it's just that about last six months ago, his body had completely forgotten, by way of this body having never known how.
Running up the ramparts to look over the wall, he saw Grimm were following the screaming person to the walls of Ansel, and she, a girl... familiar... was getting close, and trying to find a way in.
"--SOMEONE KILL THESE THINGS!"
... Jessica?!
He jumped, he swung, he dodged, he hit, and ducked and just moved. Somehow, despite being smaller, and having no armor or shield, Jessica watched almost transfixed as she backpeddled to the nearby gate as the boy that was just so clearly Jaune Arc dealt with the dozen Grimm that had been chasing her.
Jaune himself, didn't notice, he was just focused on killing the monsters that were trying to eat-harm-kill his friend.
And then... when there were no more surviving grimm, just disolving lumps of black and bone... He heard her call him.
"Jaune?"
He gave one last look around, then looked at... yup. Short, brown with green highlights, that nice tatoo around her right eye, this time her ring very much on her finger instead off missing, and-"OOF!"
He wrapped his arms around her, noting that their size difference wasn't actually that much now.
"JAUNE ARC WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?"
Shit his dad saw him-
"HEY DONT SHOUT AT HIM HE JUST SAVED ME!"
...
She pulled back from her body-crushing hug and he got a good look at her, even as people rushed from the nearby gates staring at the dozen fading grimm, and him, sword in one hand, yet both arms holding this mystery girl who was for a moment, glaring behind her toward the gate.
"Hey Jessica."
She turned her head back to him, and suddenly was grinning widely. "Hey."
".... sooo...."
"... long story. My ring needs a recharge, aaannd... no aura." She sighed. "Hence the..."
"shi---ooot." He winced, and looked over her. Last time, he'd have said she was a small sixteen or so. This time... adjusting for his own change in perspective (though not by much)... "You look...?"
She nodded with a wince, and asked "... you're... thirteen?"
"Fourteen. You uh... big rush?" He almost froze, as his question came seemingly from nowhere.
"Nonono, no, the crisis we had's... over now. Used portals to get survivors to some places around Remnant." He winced even as he smiled, mind filling in the gaps. "I'm sure some are adapting to things like age... and species... changes. Couldn't make me a little older though, could it?" Jaune just held her gaze a moment, before they both just started to laugh. "I uh... Sup- I mean, Clark, Bruce and Diana, they're... uhm... Vale, Atlas, Mistral... somewhere. But, I didn't know how far back the..." She paused, hearing a crowd gather.
Jaune pulled her tight, and whispered "We'll talk in private later, for now... you visited awhile ago with some family, who you're currently separated from due to some really private stuff and ended up landed not far from here trying to visit me."
He felt more than saw her agreeing smile, and then she pulled away from him, though kept a hand on one of his arms - the one not holding a sword. He turned to see his dad, very much both pissed off but also unsure of how to act, considering the various factors obvious to everyone, including that his gaze kept going to where, by now, the grimm had died and since disappeared.
-
It was interesting, watching Jessica meet his family, and react to some of the bits he explained to her. She was surprised at the number of siblings, and that they were all sisters.
Saphron his eldest sister wasn't here, though recent-enough pictures let them show her for when the now-twenty-three year old visited. The two pairs of twins, all four older than him, were champing at the bit to hear just how he and Jessica knew each other, but neither were willing the say anything (a good thing, considering they hadn't come up with a proper story yet). Since both sets of twins shared their own room, and Saphron's was free, it was decided that instead of using what was the original second room, currently going spare and bare of, well, anything, really, Jessica would get to use Saphron's bedroom, since it was pretty clear without words she was sticking around.
A short tour - avoiding the first bedroom occupied by the parents, she got to see both the original bedroom number two, currently just decorated as a spare/guest room that the Arcs willingly let out to visiting huntsman when the local inn gets full, she was shown Lavender and Amber's room - the latter who tried to then get her to stay and play - in the second extension to the home. Jaune decided not to, then, show her his - since they'll be going there after the tour anyway. Then they went to the other side of the house, to where the other three bedrooms of the first extension were, and the twins got to show off theirs, then shown to Saphron's bedroom.
After that, Jaune and Jessica were told that they could 'catch up' before lunch.
Jaune knew that meant the interrogation was after lunch.
In his room - which he was glad he'd had a chance to... re-arrange, so to speak (his younger original self... ugh.) They'd gotten to really talk.
Aware they might be overheard, they'd kept voices down whilst he was, 'showing her his favourite music'.
"So... awhile ago, when team RWBY... What happened on Earth?" Jaune asked as they chilled out, leaning against his bedframe on the floor. "Yang let slip they went ... ah... not long before this reset."
Quirking her lips at his choice of word, she sighed, and tucked hands beneath knees in a too-familiar gesture from when they were in the simulation. "Someone called Arthur Watts had jumped to our universe, somehow brought Grimm into being there, and we needed help." Forehead to knees, she spoke into her legs, "Both of your teams were supposed to come. Both. That they left you... and Nora and Ren, out... I was... upset with them for that." She tilted abit, so she could look him in the eye, "Though it was interesting seeing the change they went through as a result of the trip."
"How so?"
"Blake. Human." She grinned. "Really annoyed at the lack of a second set of ears. Funny thing, though, even though Ruby, Blake and Yang had... different powers instead of aura and their semblances, Weiss didn't have powers at all. Still awesome, though. There, she was like, to Team RWBY, like Bruce is to the Justice League. Clark, an alien with sun-powered uber-strength, uber-hearing, laser-eyes, chill-breathe and able to fly. Diana, a literal daughter of a god, power of flight, super strength and so on. Then Bruce. No powers." She paused, then looked up in thought, "well, some times in answer to 'whats your power' he'd say, 'I'm rich'. But he's basically... or was, anyway, just an unpowered human relying entirely on training and... gadgets... to fight." She looked aside a moment, quirking, "Now he's here, he's got powers. If he can use aura again, then he'll be strong, fast, and so on, well beyond his original level. But he'll also be out of his element, in a way."
"Because he's not rich here."
"I mean, not having a megacorporation to run, or a secret batcave to build his gadgets in." He laughed, as she added, "Though I expect him to change that... but it'll take time, and if he's a teenager again..."
He smiled. "I'm sure he'll do well for himself."
"Yeah. So. Anyway. Ruby, Weiss, Blake, Yang, they helped out, immensely. Ended the Grimm invasion, went home... and things were fine for a year or so..."
Jaune put an arm around her as she thought about why they'd ended up running to remnant as refugees, trying to figure out what to say.
"It's okay, I... I don't need the bigger picture stuff. Did... Did the others... Flash, Cyborg, Vixen?"
"... No." She hid her face again, but just collapsed sideways into him as he pulled her fully into a hug, a tissue in hand out of nowhere. "You?" She whispered, hoping for a distraction.
"You said it'd been a year since that simulation, right?" She nodded, with a hum. "Well for me, it's... been a whole lot longer than that."
"Oh?"
"... I spent like, a decade or two in another dimension. Grew a beard and everything."
"... You did not!" She gasped, pulling back and staring at him, thinking it was a joke. He stared back... utterly serious, and entirely filled with a look that gave her a sense of dread.
"I... I did. Things... went wrong, in Atlas. So so wrong..."
And with that, he began his own story.